I moved from LA to a town of 2,300 people - here were the biggest culture shocks I faced in small-town America

In my small town, everybody helps everybody

Not to sound cynical, but my time in Los Angeles made me a little skeptical of the kindness of strangers.

Scammers on the street would try to sucker you into handing over money at every corner. And I remember discussions about how inviting a certain person to a party would be good because that person had pull with a certain actor or writer. It felt like almost everybody had an agenda.

A week after we moved to our new home in the mountains, my wife and I were trying to lug a very large couch out of a local store. A guy walked up and offered to help. I accepted, and he lifted and carried it out with a smile the whole time. Once he'd gotten it to the truck I reached in my pocket for some bills and he waved his hand — "Naw man, I just like helping people," he said. I eyed him suspiciously for about a minute, trying to figure out his angle.

My wife and I have been pulled out of snowbanks, drifts, and ditches at least half a dozen times by people just driving by. Most recently I was pulled out by a guy in a tractor who was plowing a road I hadn't realized was not county-maintained. On top of the fact that he pulled me out and pulled out the car behind me, he was taking a few hours out of his morning to clear a road of snow despite the fact that he had no responsibility to do so.

Needless to say, it was very different from what I had experienced in the big city.

People leave their doors unlocked and their valuables in plain sight

This was a tough one for a man who grew up in Baltimore and then lived in Los Angeles, but where I live now, few people lock their houses. Many cars are left unlocked, even on the main street in town. People leave their duffels with their wallets and phones in open-air cubbies in the locker room at the gym.

It took me a while to realize how guarded I had been walking the streets of downtown Los Angeles, or even going to my local gym.

Thankfully, when it comes to crime in my new hometown, public drunkenness is typically the worst thing people hear about in the police blotter.

The media focus on the local community

I still remember one of my first big culture shocks: when I saw a picture from the local high school basketball team on the front page of the daily paper.

I used to read the nationally-minded LA Times. Now my local paper, the Jackson Hole News & Guide, runs stories about the debate team.

The issues people care about here are different than those in the city. Stories about land usage, grazing rights, and the Bureau of Land Management are hot-button topics over here, while they may not register with my friends in coastal cities.

The region is lacking in racial diversity

According to the US Census Bureau, my county is just 0.4% black. Our largest nearby urban center, Salt Lake City (about 4 hours away) barely fares better, at 2.02%. While there are rapidly-growing Latino communities in most of the Rocky Mountain West, they're still smaller than in most urban centers.

Compare that to my old hometown of LA, where 49% of the population is Latino, 9% is black, 12% is Asian, and just 28% non-Hispanic white.

I am not going to speculate on the reasons why minority populations aren't larger in these mountain towns. But I'll say that it does make me feel more than a bit separated from the greater debates on racism taking place across the country.

Hunting is extremely important to the local culture — and much different than I imagined

I grew up with two extremely anti-gun former hippies as parents. I never shot a gun until I was 30.

But given our regular interactions with dangerous wildlife in the Tetons, and the popularity of hunting throughout the region, it felt like a necessity to have a gun, which is why I own one today.

I was surprised to find that shooting is, well, fun.

I took my hunter's education course with people of all ages and political affiliations, and learned that responsibility, respect, and control are the guiding principles. The gun owners I met take the responsibility of owning a gun very seriously and approve of formal education and certification for operating weapons.

Hunting is a central component of life up here because until the early 1900s, if you couldn't hunt, you might starve. Much of this area was first explored and settled by trappers with limited outside resources, especially during the winter. That tradition continued on into the modern era.

While many restaurants may tout the ethical source of their meats, no meat is more free-range, organically fed, or responsibly sourced than game meat.

I discovered that most hunters around here have high respect for local wildlife — much more than visitors I've observed crowding a poor moose and calf to get a picture, for example.

Everyone here loves to play in the great outdoors

In the city, it was easy to fall into the cycle of bar/restaurant/shopping/pool. Up here, you're forced to spend time in nature for fun and socializing.

Instead of meeting up for drinks, people make ski dates. I know quite a few people who take their dates on hikes instead of going to restaurants. After work, a friend and I hike up and then ski down the local hill by headlamp. And when you ask people what they did last weekend, there's almost always a mention of some sort of outdoor activity.

Perhaps this culture helps explain why life expectancy is so long in my small Idaho county, and why it scores so well in other health categories, according to 2014 data.

Many businesses are closed on Sundays, and nightlife shuts down early

This was one of the biggest shocks for me when I moved to my new town.

The supermarket is closed on Sunday. The hardware stores are closed on Sunday, and the lumber yard closes at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

It can be very frustrating to get into a home project on a Sunday only to realize I need a different type of saw bit or a box of screws but the local stores are closed. The "whatever you want, anytime you want it" culture is such a basic part of city life that it took a while to fully grasp that I couldn't run out to a store after 5 p.m., couldn't grab dinner after 9 p.m., and couldn't do any shopping on Sunday.

And bars don't stay open nearly as long as they do in the city. Unless there's a band playing or it's a special event, most bars close by midnight. Worse yet, there is no such thing as late-night food. I can't tell you how many times I've left the bar at closing time and would have paid an exorbitant price for a burrito or a slice of pizza, only to go home empty-handed.

Long distances don't seem so long anymore

Living up here can alter time and space. When I lived in Los Angeles, driving the 33 miles from Hollywood to Venice might as well have been driving to another state. It's an old joke that when friends move west of Sepulveda, you never see them again.

Yet up here, a large percentage of the population drives 30-some miles each way over a state line every day to get to work. (Of course, that drive takes about 35 minutes, not the hour-and-a-half it can take to get to Venice and park during a busy Saturday).

Most people drive the 300 miles it takes to get to Salt Lake City to catch a flight that's cheaper or more direct than a local flight would be. I have friends who've driven to Salt Lake and back in a day for an important doctor's visit or a kid's sports tournament.

And it's common for high school sports teams will ride several hours each way for a game. Perhaps the most amazing part of those long drives is the fact that you may only pass through one or two small cities along the way.

Small towns are more intimate but also more isolating than big cities

I've heard a lot of people in my town say they love visiting vibrant, cultured cities, but "can't stand all the people."

I can understand their discomfort. There are fewer people here than on some city blocks in LA.

You have a lot of time to be alone with your thoughts up here, and if you have issues with crowds and the bustle of busy boulevards, this is a great place. Acre lots are pretty standard in neighborhoods. You can always find parking, traffic is minimal, and there's a real sense of "we're all in this together" even if we're all more separated.

On the other hand, there are fewer social events here, especially in the winter. And many people in small towns have had their friends for years, so it can take a while to build strong relationships, whereas in cities people are usually more interested in networking and trying to expand their social groups. Still, within a few years you begin to feel like you know everybody.

Small towns can be more intimate and also more isolating than cities, and it was shocking to adjust to that.

I'm a coastal liberal — and I was forced to see things from another perspective

I moved to a small town at just the right time in national politics. It feels like the conservative/liberal divide has grown to absurd proportions, and in part it's become a geographic divide as well as a social one.

I'm a coastal liberal who now lives around rural conservatives, and living here has forced me to see things from another perspective.

My town was settled mostly by Latter-day Saints who worked in ranching and farming. There's still cattle and farmland interspersed between the burgeoning neighborhoods. Many of the county elders and large landowners are still Mormon farmers and ranchers, and religion is such a big part of life that leaving the church can mean for some people losing social and family ties.

I've come to understand the fear some small-town residents have of technology and new ways of working. In cities, people embrace new industries powered by tech and don't think twice about the demise of agricultural jobs. But when you were raised to be a cowboy, it can be frustrating to discover the only way you can make enough money to buy a house involves computers. I've seen this frustration unfortunately get aimed at newcomers to my town, many of whom are college-educated coastal liberals who ride bikes and skis instead of horses.

I would not have seen this very real problem fueling rural discontent had I never left LA, even if I feel like some of that anger is directed at me. But I've also gained a new perspective on national issues that I would have missed had I stayed in the city.

For example, after Donald Trump's election, I saw memes and posts from friends in California talking about how their state should secede, or how sparsely populated states should have their electoral college votes or senate representation reduced.

My first thought was water: Many of the rivers they depend on in California come from headwaters up here. As the saying goes, in Wyoming, "whiskey's for drinking, and water's for fighting over." When I pointed out that to disregard these states could result in dire consequences for water-hungry California, I got attacked by people with whom I agree on 99% of the issues.

Local politics feel much more personal here

A year after I moved here, I found myself at the local bar, casually drinking a beer with my town's mayor. We then went to a party and met two previous mayors.

In a town of 2,300, it's amazing how quickly you can get involved in local politics, should you choose to. Of course, being mayor of Victor, Idaho, is considerably different from being the mayor of Los Angeles. But the opportunities to affect policy and experience politics in action is unmatched by anything you'll get in a big city.

One of the biggest issues we voted on in the last cycle was a tax increase to build a new elementary school. Since there's only one in my town, and only a few thousand voters in my county, my vote impacted my life and the lives of those around me in a very palpable way.

People you interact with actually know you

After a few weeks stopping at our little neighborhood market after work, the people behind the counter began to recognize me, my wife, and our son. As a friend of mine pointed out, "They'll say, 'Hey, just saw your wife earlier, she sure loves that fresh-cut bacon.'" Also, with only three bars in town, you don't have to be a barfly for your local purveyor to know you and your drink.

The woman who watches our son part-time at daycare would be our waitress when we go out to dinner, and it's a pretty regular occurrence to bump into people we know having dinner just a table over. Living in Los Angeles, where there's a bar on every corner and more stores than I could ever shop at in a lifetime, I never felt much like I was going to Cheers. Now, the Knotty Pine has become that place where Adam behind the bar knows my name.

People hitchhike, and it can be incredibly rewarding

The first time my friend took me to hitchhike back up the mountain pass we'd just skied down, I was nervous. My whole life I had been told that hitchhiking is dangerous, and in some places illegal.

But I soon found myself hitching nearly every day. In turn, whenever possible, I pick up hitchers — usually skiers and snowboarders in the winter and mountain bikers in the summer.

But I've also picked up people simply commuting from our town to the bigger one just over the mountain pass. It's a great feeling when you get a ride from sticking your thumb out, and the stories you get from the hitchers you pick up make for an interesting commute.

I couldn't imagine picking up a stranger off the street in Los Angeles. But hitchhiking is a beautiful tradition still alive and thriving in some small towns like mine.

Everybody drives pickup trucks

In Los Angeles I usually only saw pickups leaving Home Depot or hauling around construction equipment and lumber. I knew surfers and snowboarders who drove trucks to transport their equipment. But few people just drove one as their daily commuter vehicle.

But everybody in my small town has a pickup truck.

Obviously if you have a lot of large toys, which most people do here, a pickup comes in handy. You can throw wet, dirty gear into the back without worrying about it. And many people with fireplaces cut their own firewood. It's tough to fit even a half cord into the back of an SUV.

Pickups are just extremely useful in a town where you need a rugged vehicle to get around and live an outdoorsy lifestyle. I might see the occasional luxury vehicle, but there isn't as much value placed on what you drive. Compared to Los Angeles, where driving a luxury car was a requisite to be considered successful, it's refreshing to know that the richest person in my town drives a nice F-250 every day. Even if she likely also has a Tesla in her barn.

People give directions differently out here

The first time my friend said he was parked on the north side of the parking lot, I had to turn my truck on and look at the direction in my console.

Because getting outdoors is such a common part of life out here, you have to learn your compass directions quickly. Visitors get lost and have to be rescued every year out here because they don't know what direction they're facing or where they need to go. And a lot of GPS maps won't include certain roads because they're too new or not even official "roads."

As it is, many of the roads are named like a grid — for example, "4432 W 5250 S." It's normal for friends to send you their GPS spot rather than an address to let you know where they're meeting up. It's very different from most of my life when directions were "take a left on La Cienega, right on Venice, then turn left when you get to the end, and my house is the first one on your right."

And the rodeo is one of the hottest hangouts in town

Rodeo culture is not only alive but a central part of my new home. There is the big rodeo in Jackson Hole that some locals consider a bit more of a show put on for the tourists. And then there's one in smaller Teton County, Idaho, where you park in a field, sit in uncovered skeletal metal bleachers and watch the cowboys and cowgirls do their thing.

The first time I went, it reminded me of our local football and lacrosse games growing up, except the rodeo athletes were competing for cash, and instead of throwing a ball around, their sport involved holding onto the back of a bucking mountain of muscle.

I sat up in the packed bleachers next to seemingly every cowboy family in the valley. When I went down to get some food, I saw the kids dressed in their nicest cowboy hats and pearl-button shirts, feeling awkward as they needled each other and tried to work up the courage to talk to their crushes.

It was an echo of what high school kids do all around the country, but here it was happening at the rodeo grounds, with the dust and mud and leather and cattle. Here they wore jeans with big buckles instead of polo shirts and khaki shorts or surf trunks and flip-flops. A world away from sport as I'd known it and yet a reminder that, in the end, if we're not all singing the same song, at least the tunes are familiar.